


Fragments and Splinters

by 0Skelledark



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anger, Depression, Drugs, Fear, Loneliness, Love, M/M, Memories, Suicide Attempt, Worry, roadrat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 05:22:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14301687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0Skelledark/pseuds/0Skelledark
Summary: This is a grouping of RoadRat writing drabbles, story scenes, and maybe short stories that are all rather depressing, sad, heartbreaking, or otherwise. Future stories will have their warnings added onto the tags and so-on.





	1. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This first writing was just to get a scene off my chest, and the vent-writing helped out pretty well. Modern!AU, Jamie lives/works on a junkyard and Mako is a friend he met when he was visiting Australia from New Zealand.

He threw the phone across the couch. It had been days… Weeks. No texts, no calls, no e-mails, no… Anything. No contact with Mako, and he was starting to feel it. Sure, he’d said he would be away for a while. He just hadn’t said how long. And it was becoming unbearable for Jamie.

The buildup of  _everything_  was starting to bubble up again, making static in his head and a whole mess of him. He’d almost forgotten how to breathe, how to calm himself down like they’d gone over, how to make a clear line through his thoughts to the point he’d wanted to achieve. Right now, it didn’t even really matter… He didn’t want to do anything, had nothing he wanted to achieve. He simply breathed, lived, and existed in his junkyard home.

Something-something business… A trip to another country, no cell service, no… Jamison couldn’t fathom why Mako wouldn’t contact him at all- but then again, he could understand it. They were just mates… They chatted, helped each other out, had a beer or together. There was no way that the other man could understand how much of an anchor he’d become for the twenty-five year old who was only barely starting to realize how much his life was not together.

It was like… He’d dipped his toes into the water to see the ripples start, and then walked away before watching where they ended…? Or maybe he’d just been a rock, and it didn’t matter because his path was to keep on going right through? Fleshy fingers mussed at messy hair, metal arm tucked over an anxiously clenched gut. Maybe it was just because Mako had been the first person to ever seem like he’d… seen him clearly. To maybe get that there was more to Jamison Fawkes than trouble and a Junkyard tenant.

That had to be it- that had to be why the blonde was bothered by the length of the silence this time. Mako understood why, when sometimes Jamie texted him late at night, it was to help prevent a panic attack brought on by a dream. Or that, sometimes Jamison needed new suggestions for movies or books not for the content, but just for something to distract him off of heavy thoughts and shallow feelings over himself.

Fiery-golds peeked back to the lump of plastic and metal. It was cheap, half the time it didn’t even work proper, but it had been his lifeline for the past several months… His lifeline to someone who he at least  _thought_  he understood. But this was getting closer… Close to a month, really, if he actually sat and thought about it. Last week, he’d been worried that maybe something had happened. This week, he wondered if he’d ever hear about it if something did. Would anybody tell him?

There was a resounding ‘No’ in his thoughts, and he couldn’t help the clench in his chest, the sudden tension in the back of his throat. He wasn’t contacting him, and nobody would, because he was a  **nobody**  in Mako’s life. Just some bloke from Australia he’d helped out a bit. Nothing big. Jamison Fawkes, a big Nothing of a person. Feeling tears rolling down his cheeks shouldn’t have surprised him, but they did.

“All alone, just like you wanted, eh Fawkes?” He muttered dryly to himself. He could take care of himself, could hold his own, live this sorry little excuse for a life by himself. He just… Didn’t want to. Not quite like that. Whatever fire in him that shone so strong in school when he punched a kid in the mouth for talking shit about him, that found explosives and chemical reactions so exciting, that could pull apart an engine and rebuild it easy… That fire was so low, it really only got him out of bed in the morning, got him to feed himself, to do his job. Kept him from being a corpse.

Even that little flame was getting doused by his tears tonight, and he wished he had some sort of alcohol to drown himself in. Couldn’t even go to the bar. Fidgeting and frustrated with himself, Jamie kept wiping at his face, trying to get it all to stop as he held back a little sob. He could cry quietly, dead silent when he wanted to… About one of the few things he could do that with. There was no reason to do it here, no other kids in the room he didn’t want to wake up, no other people around, but… It was the act of it that made him feel okay about crying in the first place.

Curling up in what kind of little ball a six-foot-six bloke could, false leg getting in the way only a little, Jamison cried as quietly as he could, for as long as he wanted. It didn’t make him feel any better, but at the very least… It tired him out enough that, half an hour later, he slowly relaxed to stretch out on the couch to get a little bit of sleep. Face a mess, maybe his first resolve in the morning would be to go get some booze so he wasn’t doing this for another night. For now, he drifted off, listening to the sounds of wind outdoors, a car in the distance, and imagining the rumbling purr of a motor cycle coming to take him away from here.

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	2. Easy Way Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a fine line between fixing a problem, and making it worse. In the process of figuring out which side he is on, Jamison makes a terrible decision that could cost him everything... and Mako, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suicide attempt warning.
> 
> The song that inspired this one was Easy Way Out by Low Roar, and I absolutely love it to pieces. I don't normally write things this dark, heavy, or otherwise a subject so sensitive, but it was sort-of a challenge to myself to overcome a thing or two.

 

**I heard you call my name while I'm passing out…**

Jamison felt heavy. So heavy, from the top of his head, all the way down to his toes. It was hard to lift his head, to even turn it the slight shift it took to indicate he’d heard anything. His stomach hurt, his head in such a state of thick fog… It was ridiculous that he could still think so much, at such a rapid speed, even with all of that.

“Jamison **!** ” The voice was urgent, alarmed, but it sounded slow and muffled… He couldn’t even open his eyelids, and he couldn’t even laugh. When was the last time anyone ever called for him in such a way? Had anyone, ever? It was that voice, though, who it _was_ that had his lips curling into a soft frown. What was _Mako_ doing here?

**The mistake I've made; It can't be turned around…**

Things had been rocky for his entire life. Orphaned young, passed from foster family to foster family, nobody really wanted him around. They all thought there was something wrong with him, and the last one even took him to various doctors and shrinks. He had a cocktail of medication when he’d moved out on his own… And that only helped him for so long, really. Especially when he got addicted.

That was it, though… wasn’t it? Was that the system failing him, or giving him the chance he’d taken now? These pills that he’d gone to, or back to, that he’d tried cutting out of his life for a few months. The lies with labels, the band-aid on the symptoms but not assisting for the cure… He was smart, he had a short attention span and he was destructive; the depression and the memory problems only hit after the pills began, and led him to this after he stopped taking them…

 

**I took the easy way out…**

“Jamison Fawkes, damn it!” Mako’s voice was getting more muffled, and Jamie felt a little… hot? Cold? He couldn’t really tell. His consciousness had started to fade, only to get jerked back by large hands lifting him up, shaking him. “What did you do?! What the hell did you do?!” That was it, though- It would always be his fault, anyways, wouldn’t it? Accidentally breaking things when he got excited, forgetting dates and times they were supposed to meet up, causing problems even though he’d been _trying._

**I took the easy way out…**

“No…” There it went, the barely listening Jamison could hear the realization in the other man’s voice. The found pill bottles, the alcohol that had helped wash them down. “No, no, no…!” Each word punctuated with anger, Mako holding the blonde closer to his chest. All of them, as many as he could get himself to swallow. There was a sudden movement that roused Jamie again, but the other man likely couldn’t tell; he wasn’t moving, and he was hardly breathing.

**I took the easy way out…**

A hand pried lips apart easily, quickly. Mako worked quickly, tried to get Jamison to maybe vomit or something. He didn’t know what to do first, and Jamie was getting so cold… A phone call quickly made when it was clear he couldn’t get the younger man to empty his stomach, and an ambulance was on its way. He couldn’t quite tell if Jamison was breathing at all, so he began cpr to see what he could do for him. “Jamie, please… Stay with me…”

 

**I went one for one before casting out…**

He’d really tried, you know? Even when Mako, the only person who ever seemed to give a damn, was away or busy… He tried to keep busy, tried to work through his problems. He was loathe to get back on the pills, hated all that they did to him when he was on them. Why should he have to, when there was finally someone who made him feel human? Like a person worth hanging out with, being around, or maybe even someone worth loving?

He wanted to be a better person for Mako. Jamie had gone from a shut-in addicted to his prescription medication to escape reality, to going out and doing well at his job and living his life. Having goals, having something- _someone_ worth living for. That had been both what brought him out of everything, and what made him crash so hard. He’d depended on him so much…

**The mistake I've made; It can't be turned around**

The catalyst had been a fight. Mako had to move for work, Jamison panicked. They argued, and split apart in front of the restaurant they had been supposed to be having a date at. It had been Jamie’s fault- it was _always_ his fault- and he got an angry text later. Mako was packing, and he would stop by before he left. They were over, whatever it was they had, and it was Jamie’s fault. He knew it, the world knew it, and he’d decided to stop troubling everyone.

A bottle of whiskey, every single pill he could find in his apartment. This was the way to do it, wasn’t it? So many celebrities died this way; accidental or not. It was almost foolproof unless you couldn’t get yourself to swallow so many. But that was what the alcohol was for, and the burn of it helped distract him from other things. It was harder than it seemed, though, because with each new set, he felt regret. He was sorry for being such a pain in the ass, he was sorry for hurting Mako and saying horrible things. He just wanted to be better than all of this…

 

**I took the easy way out**

The ambulance was there, and Mako was terrified. He was trying to support him, had a blanket draped over him, tried to keep him warm and breathing and _alive_. What a big idiot he’d been… He knew Jamie had been hiding things from him, his behavior shifting in the past month or two… He’d stopped coming over to visit to find Jamie stoned off of medication, but he’d also started noticing chewed fingernails and shaking hands and mood swings…

**I took the easy way out**

They were putting things on Jamie, getting him on a stretcher, someone directing him away from him. Had it been a bad idea to suggest rehab? A proper diagnosis? If he’d known… If he knew that Jamie had stopped cold turkey, that all of what had been helping him was also hurting him so much… He would’ve both pushed harder, even as he empathized more. How badly had those doctors screwed up?

**I took the easy way out**

In the ambulance, Jamie’s heart was still beating, and they were getting him to keep breathing, but everything was hanging at the edge of a cliff for him. Mako had to ride in a separate vehicle behind them, unable to fit in the back of the one that held Jamie. He numbly answered a few questions, but mostly they seemed to be giving him time until they got to the hospital, until they found out what would happen to Jamison, before they asked anything serious. He appreciated it.

 

**I wanna feel something again memorable.**

There had been something about the pair, since they first met. The loud, energetic and unusual Jamison Fawkes, somehow working well with the big, quiet, tough and yet soft Mako Rutledge. Their age difference didn’t even seem to matter, the whole twenty-three years between them meaning nothing when it came to their interacting. They hung out, they chatted about their interests- which weren’t as far apart as some might expect. Motor cycles, engines, vehicles… Food, animals, travel. They made quick friends, and over the course of several months, it was like they’d been together for years.

He really should have seen it coming. Did something to prevent it. Jamie had some problems, sure, but Mako had been learning how to help him, working to get him to someplace healthy and good. And then he’d fucked it all up, didn’t even get the chance to tell Jamison he wanted him to come with him. Now, he might never get to… To tell him that, and about everything, how he felt about him, how much he’d wanted to say something but always got caught up in things…

**I wanna feel something again memorable.**

The doctors and nurses managed to get Jamison stable, but he was comatose. They weren’t sure what to expect, or for how long he would remain stable. They asked Mako to contact his family, only to find out that he was basically the only one who would be here for him. No family, no other friends close enough to call… Just Mako Rutledge, sitting in a small seat in the waiting room, looking both pissed and dazed at the same time. It was this man who had to start filling out forms, that the hospital would work with for the… ‘just in case’ scenario of Jamison dying.

It was probably the hardest thing Mako ever did, but after some hours he was allowed to sit in the room where Jamie was, hooked up to all sorts of machines. They were trying to clean up his blood, they had pumped his stomach and given him things to soak up what he’d taken. Supposedly, if he’d taken more of one thing or another, they wouldn’t have even been able to bring him back if he’d died on the table. Mako tried not to think about that as he took a far-too-still hand in his and held it. They’d even taken off the prosthetics… It was strange, seeing Jamison looking so incomplete, so corpse-like already….

**I wanna feel something again memorable.**

Days in the rain, watching Jamie jump into puddles. Avoiding the ocean, but walking on the upper beach with him and breaking away only to find some seashells. They’d gone to an arcade once, and he’d won some weird but cute radish alien thing that was tucked in with his more personal items. A road trip that took them further inland, where they went camping and laid down under the stars chatting about nonsensical stuff. Trying to find movies that Jamison could sit through and enjoy, or otherwise laugh at his commentary and the fake lines he made up for things.

They hadn’t been friends for a particularly long time, but this spunky beanpole of a brat had revealed to Mako a lot about himself he never thought he would get to know again. How to just relax and enjoy the little things. Discovering new food places and trying new things. He was an older man, but Jamison taught him a lot of new tricks. This whole thing was such a terrible mess, and he cried several times. Answering questions, assisting in any way possible, and even admitting that he could have been paying more attention to him than he was… None of that was nearly as anxiety-riddled as hearing the soft beep of the machine indicating that Jamison was still alive.

**I wanna feel something again memorable.**

 

 

* * *

 

**Encore**

Things were so dark and heavy, and he slogged through muck anywhere he turned. He didn’t dream, or at least he didn’t think he dreamed, but it was so hard to do just about anything like this. He was lost, he didn’t know where he was, he was _scared_ and he was _cold_ and he was so, so very sorry… Sorry for everything, sorry for blowing himself up with some dumb prank, sorry for getting caught up in so much trouble. Sorry for being such a nasty little shit when everyone around him turned their backs on him. He was so sorry for being a burden for Mako.

But Mako… He wanted to see him again, he was just so… Just so _important_ to him, he was terrified of losing him forever… Felt like he was turning away from him when he brought up that job. That had him lash out, had him distance himself so fast. Then he plummeted into this sludge, and he could feel himself sinking into it further. He was suffocating, and he couldn’t see where he was going… But something was pulling at him, pulling him down into someplace calm, and dark, and quiet. Maybe it would be nice to just let himself be there, to lay down and let it take him…

There was another thing nagging at him, a continued reason for struggle and confusion. A consistent sound the only thing he could hear in this place, that went along with a rhythmic interruption. There was familiarity in that sound, even as it was foreign to him, and it was getting louder. Changing, there were other things that went with it, that he was starting to recognize. A beeping, faint and ringing, but also voices. Movement.

Jamison eventually heard the sounds of someone sobbing… and it broke his heart so much to hear it that he had to wake up, had to apologize, had to… shut his eyes again, because the lights were bright, and there was something making it hard to breathe… Confusion came as his first expression, and he managed to open his eyes again in time to see Mako there, hear him talking to him, holding his hand as he pushed the service button for the nurses. What an amazing sight to wake up to.

 

 

 

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